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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23148040">Together Alone</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rising_Phoenix/pseuds/Rising_Phoenix'>Rising_Phoenix</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Castlevania (Cartoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alucard and Hector deserve better, Cezar is alive (kind of), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of past abuse, Post-Season/Series 03, Pre-Slash, hectorcard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 10:35:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,188</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23148040</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rising_Phoenix/pseuds/Rising_Phoenix</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After the fight against the Coucil of Sisters is over, Alucard finds a survivor in the dungeons of the sister's castle...</p><p>This story contains spoilers for season 3 of the Netflix show.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya/Hector, Trevor Belmont/Sypha Belnades</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>114</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Together Alone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Alucard was stepping over what looked very much like another dismembered corpse of a human warrior, left behind by the vampires that had ruled over this castle, using humans like pets or the more lucky ones as livestock. The waste of lives disgusted him, a war against humanity started by his father who had lost his mind after the cruel death of the only woman he had ever loved.</p><p>A moment of sadness clouded his heart, remembering the generous and loving father that had raised him, not the monster that he had once been and would become again, remembering the intelligent and caring mother that had loved the man behind the legendary vampire and had given him light in his darkness and taught him that humanity maybe was worth surviving the times after all. Had given him a son and hope for a future that would bring them finally an age of awakening.</p><p>How wrong he had been.</p><p>Instead of accepting that Lisa Ţepeş was a woman of reason, a skilled scientist and doctor, they had declared her a witch, a minion of the impaler.</p><p>And one night, when they burned Lisa to her death, they had not only robbed Vlad Ţepeş of the little rest of humanity he had still been able to feel, and turned him into the insane monster they had always feared, they had also taken everything beloved from Adrian, made him an orphan long before his father’s death, robbed him of his home and his family, made him into Alucard.</p><p>There were days that he held the worry that he would turn in something that mirrored his father’s demise into darkness, but then he saw the suffering and the corpses of human victims of his kind’s merciless cruelty, and he remembered that half of him was not Dracula but still some distant residue of humanity.</p><p>His way led him deeper into the castle, aware that Sypha and Trevor were cleaning the upper floors of whatever evils were left behind there, and he had been tasked with checking what lay beneath the floors where the main fight against the vampires had taken place.</p><p>The stench of dirt, feces and mold flooded his sensitive nostrils and he wanted to throw up, already anticipating that he would find nothing but death down there.</p><p>What surprised him though was the body saw lying on the ground, decapitated, and dressed in a furcoat and the head that had rolled a little away from the body it had belonged to, with long, silky looking bright red hair, next to a dagger that had fallen to the ground and freed or body of her head. He had met her before, years ago, one of the vampire woman that build the Council of Sisters in Styria, as ruthless as her sisters even though she looked innocent and almost childlike, speaking with soft tones. His father had not been tricked by Lenore, her well-played words not well played enough to seduce a man with so much more power that he could have crushed her under his heal like the cockroach she had been.</p><p>Alucard could not help but smile at the thought that she had found her death down here, in a place of dirt and where humans had been degraded to animals, and he almost turned to return upstairs when he heard a sound from the dungeon cell behind her.</p><p>He had thought that the one who had killed the seductress had fled the scene, and so he found himself surprised that it had been the prisoner, some poor soul who had collected the last bit of his strength to overpower and clean the world of her existence.</p><p>Only slowly he stepped closer, and tilted the head a little to the side at the sight that unfolded in front of him.</p><p>A man was crouching in the corner of the dungeon cell, curled into a ball, holding his own body that was shaking in pain and the smell that reached Alucard told him that he was covered in his own sweat.</p><p>Alucard frowned, narrowing his eyes and then tore the door to the cell open without needing much of his strength, stepping closer to the human man, curious and with a hint of worry that he could not quite explain.</p><p>When he was at arm’s length, the other looked up and he looked into pale eyes that were unfocussed and showed that the man was suffering from a fever, maybe wounded, definitely in pain. The silver blond hair was matted with dirt and sweat, sticking to a face almost too pretty for a human man. His mouth was opened and the lips bloody from where he had bitten into them, the scent of blood, mouthwatering and hard to resist, present.</p><p>Alucard looked at his father’s former forge master, at his general in surprise.</p><p>“Please…,” Hector whispered, the voice barely audible. “Please, kill me.”</p><p>Alucard tilted the head to the other side. Not much reminded him of the proud man he had met in the past at his father’s court.</p><p>“Why would I do that?” He asked.</p><p>Hector’s trembling hand reached for him and before he could reach his coat, Alucard made a step back and caused the human to fall face first into the dirt when he could not grab what he had aimed for. He moaned and whimpered that touched Alucard’s heart in an unexpected way.</p><p>“Please…,” the human whimpered.</p><p>Alucard crouched down next to him. He would later not be able to explain why he did it, but his hand touched Hector’s shoulder, something in him wanting to ease the suffering and he almost complied with his wish and ended his painful torture.</p><p>“Hector,” Alucard said softly and the human looked up, allowing the young vampire to turn him to his back. “Do you know who I am?”</p><p>Hector tried to focus his eyes on him, and then they widened slightly and he nodded slowly.</p><p>“You’re…his son,” he whispered. “Adrian.”</p><p>Alucard had not heard his given name in a long time, having gotten used to be only Alucard to others, and still he nodded in confirmation, not wanting to confuse the suffering man further.</p><p>“Please,” Hector whispered again, his voice growing thinner and thinner. “Kill me. I…I cannot take the pain. I can…not.”</p><p>Alucard frowned again.</p><p>“You are not wounded,” he then said. “Is it poison?”</p><p>Hector shook his head, his eyes now firmly connected to Alucard’s own pale eyes.</p><p>“The ring…,” he said, raising the trembling left hand on which he wore a twisted band of a strange red and black metal. The skin around the ring looked swollen and red as if it was infected with something, the veins on hand and arm dark and almost pulsing.</p><p>Alucard’s eyes widened.</p><p>“What…?” He whispered with a gasp.</p><p>Hector’s other hand grabbed the brim of his long coat, like a beggar would grab it desiring food, and indeed Hector’s eyes were pleading to end what he was going through.</p><p>“She bound me to her,” he said, eyes shifting into the direction of Lenore’s corpse. “She made me her…her pet, but I had to stop her. I had to.”</p><p>Alucard nodded in understanding. So the vampire had made Hector, a devil’s forge master her slave, bound to her in a bond that surpassed death.</p><p>“The pain…Adrian…I beg you…I cannot take it,” Hector begged him.</p><p>Tears of fear and desolation covered Hector’s face and even though he once had been Alucard’s enemy, his father’s minion, he felt pity for the human who was going crazy in a pain that would not kill him and weakened him already so much that he was not able to end it himself.</p><p>His eyes stared at the ring that was the source of all the torture that Hector was going through, and pressing his lips into a thin line, Alucard got up, straightened his back. Hector, that powerful and skilled necromancer and forge master, a man his father had trusted despite being human and of such a young age, lay there in the dirt. He should let the former enemy suffer. Should let him go crazy in pain.</p><p>Instead he drew his sword and let it slide through the air, crashing down.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~~~~~~~~*~*~*~~~~~~~~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Hector woke in a bed of softest linen, clean and smelling of something that resembled soap but was scented with some sort of flower without the annoying fragrance that often gave him a headache.</p><p>For a moment he thought that he had died.</p><p>He remembered having killed Lorena, despite her laughter and the threat that he would pay for killing her, thinking she could charm him again to stupidly trust her and spare her life. It had no longer mattered. The abuse and pain he had suffered at her hands, the repeated rape that she had called love and seduction, it had stolen the last spark of life from him, had made him the walking dead, a shell of the man he had once been.</p><p>He remembered having been in unbearable pain after he had cut her head from her delicate neck, her curse of slavery continuing even after the last breath had left her body, her eyes from her decapitated head staring at him in shock and disbelief from the other side of the dungeon.</p><p>He remembered having crawled in a corner, praying to whatever entity existed, to end this.</p><p>He blinked at remembered that it had been Dracula’s son who had shown up, a sign that the fight he had heard even down there, had been over and that the other side had been over.</p><p>Alucard.</p><p>Adrian Fahrenheit Ţepeş.</p><p>He had humiliated himself by begging the vampire’s son to kill him and end this joke of a life.</p><p>He remembered the sword that accompanied Alucard everywhere being brought down to him.</p><p>And then he remembered nothing.</p><p>So, maybe, this was the afterlife. Maybe this was hell.</p><p>But then…was he supposed to feel pain in hell?</p><p>He frowned at the ceiling that was carved dark wood. Reminding him of something else. Of a place he had spent months living in, a place that was lost to him forever, a home that never was one to begin with. Dracula’s castle.</p><p>He sat up too quick and nauseating pain rushed through his right arm.</p><p>Confused he looked down at his hand, and found nothing. Only a stump, wrapped into a white bandage, where his hand had been.</p><p>He blinked.</p><p>His hand, it was gone. Pulsing pain was originating from the place where the hand had been.</p><p>Hector felt sick. Tears welled up in his eyes, tears he couldn’t even explain.</p><p>He was alive, how he did not know, and it did not matter. Alucard had spared him for some miraculous reason, had brought him into the castle, had taken care of the wound where he assumed his hand had been cut off complete with the torturous ring and freed him from Lenore’s curse.</p><p>Only slowly, he swung his legs out of the bed, sitting at the edge and feeling the old wooden floor under his feet, noticing that he was wearing a long white nightgown, as clean as the bed was, and even his skin was free of the dirt he had gotten on him during his stay in the dungeon. He had been washed and cared for, God knew for how long.</p><p>Getting up was a more difficult task, his legs shaky and a little wobbly, showing him that he had stayed in this bed for longer than just a few hours. The amputation of his hand and the pain Lenore had put him through had most probably put him through a fever that could have lasted days, and had weakened him further.</p><p>His feet carried him slowly towards the door, always his still present hand trying to find balance at the walls, weakness and weariness in every bone. He knew the hallways of the castle that lead to the large main stairs and went down, taking one step at a time.</p><p>He waited for a moment at the bottom of the stairs, listening into the silence of the castle, until he made out voices and clatter from somewhere to his right and his curiosity won over the fear of the unknown and he made his way, again only with slow, insecure steps towards the source of the noise that told him that there was someone else in the castle.</p><p>He had expected to find Alucard behind the door he pushed open, not remembering what room he would find there, but was met with an unexpected sight that made him blink a few times more and think for a moment that this may was still some sort of purgatory because he could not believe what he found there.</p><p>The last thing he had expected was to find Adrian Ţepeş in the company of two humans, or at least he thought they would be, who were sitting at a large wooden table. The man was sitting there with crossed arms and a glooming expression an almost empty plate in front of him, shaggy dark hair fell into his forehead, while the woman next to him, almost a girl, smiled at him with a smug expression, intelligent and bright eyes filled with a spark of amusement.</p><p>“I only said you eat like a pig, not that you are one…Treffy,” she said with a cute accent.</p><p>“I told you to not call me that,” the man grumbled and kicked the leg of the table and winced when obviously his booted toe hit the wood in a painful angle.</p><p>“What else would I call you?” She asked and then noticed the new arrival and smiled brightly at Hector, the eyes friendly and warm. “Oh, you are awake!”</p><p>She sprang to her feet, vivid and oozing a bubbly excitement that Hector had not seen in anyone before and he made a step back, trying to avoid the half hug in which she wrapped him, hooking her arm under his and leading him, though reluctantly, towards the table where she pushed him onto a chair. Hector’s eyes were wide and not quite able to understand what was going on.</p><p>“We need another plate,” the woman said, and Hector, who had still been looking around confused, only now noticed the fourth person in the room, who stood at the stove at the far wall of the kitchen, stirring something in a pot.</p><p>“I’m not the cook,” Alucard said, but turned and pushed his long hair out his face.</p><p>“Yes, you are,” the other man said. “You make a good housewife.”</p><p>“Yeah, fuck you,” Alucard said and shoveled something onto a plate and then made long graceful steps towards the group at the table and put the plate down in front of Hector.</p><p>The brunet man eyed the food from the other side of the table, but before he could move, Alucard and the woman both had slapped his arms on both sides, making him jump.</p><p>“You had already three plate. Three,” the woman said. “You’re getting fat.”</p><p>“I’m not getting fat. I’m just hungry. It’s not my fault that vampire Jesus over there is such a good cook.”</p><p>Alucard rolled his eyes and leaned against the table, his arms crossed.</p><p>“It’s good you are finally feeling well enough to get up,” the woman said, patting Hector’s healthy hand. “We were worried. Alucard…”</p><p>“I was not worried.”</p><p>“Yes, you were,” she intervened. “It’s nice that you are able to join us. Hector it is?”</p><p>Hector nodded, still speechless, and now eyeing suspiciously the plate in front of him, which was filled with scrambled eggs and bacon, fried mushrooms and berries. It looked delicious and the smell made his mouth water.</p><p>“I’m Sypha Belandes,” the young woman said, still kindly smiling, and pointed towards the dark haired man. “And this is Treffy.”</p><p>Treffy grumbled something while Alucard chuckled.</p><p>“Trevor. It’s Trevor.”</p><p>Hector looked up.</p><p>“Trevor Belmont?”</p><p>The man straightened his shoulders.</p><p>“You have heard of me?”</p><p>“Of stop being so arrogant,” Alucard said and pushed himself from the table. “He probably heard that you are a drunk vagabond and nothing else.”</p><p>“Shut up,” Belmont said. “Nobody asked you.”</p><p>“You are still under my roof,” Alucard said, returning to the stove and the large pot in which he stirred again whatever was in it. “You better behave or you have to take care of your own meals from now on.”</p><p>“He made a kitchen in an inn once explode,” Sypha said. “You better not let him have access to anything that could be set on fire.”</p><p>“This assembly of rubble is already a ruin, you think I could make it worse?”</p><p>“Yes!” Both Sypha and Alucard said at the same time, making Belmont shrug, who again had his eyes on the plate in front of Hector.</p><p>“If you don’t eat that,” Belmont said to him, pointing with a finger towards the plate, but was slapped onto the hand by Sypha.</p><p>“You have to excuse him,” Sypha told Hector who still did not know what to make of the display in front of him. “He’s a heathen without any manners.”</p><p>Hector could not help but smile a little and then started to eat carefully a first bite of food, closing his eyes and moaning in bliss at the savory taste on his tongue. He could not remember when he had ever tasted anything this divine.</p><p>“Good?” Sypha asked and Hector nodded while chewing some of the mushrooms.</p><p>“It’s delicious,” he said after he had swallowed and saw how Alucard smiled and gave him a nod. “Thank you.”</p><p>“We…eh…we need to do…things,” Sypha said and pulled the surprised looking Trevor to his feet and dragged him, while still mumbling how she was a nuisance, out of the kitchen, not very subtly giving Hector the space he needed to deal with the situation that was indeed overwhelming him even though he had tried to not let it show.</p><p>“She is the Speaker the sisters mentioned,” Hector said and Alucard only nodded in confirmation. “Thank you for…I don’t even know for what.”</p><p>Alucard turned and tilted his head to the side, a large wooden spoon in his hand.</p><p>“Maybe for sparing your life,” he said.</p><p>“You cut off my hand,” Hector gave back. “I’m…useless.”</p><p>“You’re a forge master,” Alucard said. “I think you can make good use of your skills regarding that.”</p><p>Hector looked at the bandage that was covering his stump, scared of what lay underneath the white cloth.</p><p>“You were in a fever for several days,” Alucard said. “It should be healed quite well already.”</p><p>“I’m worthless like this,” Hector stated bluntly, not receiving a reaction from the other who only looked at him for a moment.</p><p>The forge master nodded and concentrated on the food that had been prepared for him, savoring the whole plate and feeling sated and full when he finally leaned back in his chair and pushed the plate a little away.</p><p>“The forge is still intact,” Alucard then told him, while preparing another plate. “You could have a look around if you like.”</p><p>He turned and went into a crouching position, whistled shortly and put the plate down.</p><p>Hector frowned and then his eyes widened in surprise when a small dog ran on wobbly legs into the kitchen from an adjoining room, almost crashing into the waiting plate and yipping impatiently not able to eat as fast as he wanted.</p><p>“Cezar?” Hector whispered, staring at the dog that was missing an eye and a leg, the dog that he had once revived with his powers and that was his loyal and loving companion.</p><p>The dog looked up, looking more like a normal dog like ever before, the blue glow telling him it was indeed the dog that had been his beloved pet.</p><p>Hector sobbed suddenly, and went to his knees, when Cezar ran towards him and jumped into his arms.</p><p>“Oh, Cezar,” he whispered and laughed under tears when the dog bathed his face in doggy kisses. “How?”</p><p>Alucard softly smiled.</p><p>“I found him in the forge, he was hiding there,” he said. “It took me days until he trusted me enough to come out. So, Cezar is his name?”</p><p>Hector nodded.</p><p>“Would you say that Cezar is worthless?”</p><p>The forge master frowned.</p><p>“Why you I say that, he’s…”</p><p>And then he understood.</p><p>The dog with one eye and three intact legs, who had been revived by a forge master with the power of a necromancer was worth the world to Hector. So, maybe, he could be worth something too.</p><p>“You said the forge is intact?”</p><p>“Not completely,” Alucard said. “I can show you.”</p><p>Hector nodded.</p><p>“I would like that.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>~~~~~~~~*~*~*~~~~~~~~</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Alucard was standing on one of the balconies on the upper levels of the castle, looking out over the trees of the forest surrounding them. The night was slowly ebbing away and a new day was about to start, the air clean and chill, and the wind in the treetops whispering. He was lost in thought, remembering how his father had trained him in the forests back at home, how he showed him how to track a human scent with his mother hiding from them, a happy family and the forest filled with their laughter.</p><p>How he missed them.</p><p>He prayed every day to the God of the humans, hoping that he would listen to a creature like him, that his parents were reunited now and forgave him what he had done.</p><p>“I was looking for you,” a voice said behind him.</p><p>He did not need to turn around to know whose voice it was.</p><p>Sypha and Trevor had left three days ago, hunting for more adventures that especially Sypha seemed to be hungry for, and it was only him and Hector left in the castle. He had not seen much of the forge master in the past days, after he had given him access to the forge again and Hector had started to work on something.</p><p>Adrian looked at the hand that Hector had put on the balustrade, silver metal shining in the morning light, polished and filigree, the work of a master crafter.</p><p>“That is an impressive work,” he said, nodding towards the hand that was attached to Hector’s arm.</p><p>The other moved the metal fingers, the joints working smooth and without problems and Hector smiled again.</p><p>“It took quite some work,” he said. “It’s maybe not a hand of flesh and blood, but it makes me feel less useless.”</p><p>Alucard nodded.</p><p>“Sometimes, everything seems useless,” Alucard said again looking over the trees, noticing how Hector and was looking the same way as him. “What are we doing this for? Why are we here?”</p><p>Hector sighed.</p><p>“I wish I knew,” he said. “Life seems to hold nothing but cruelty and pain. The world looks so beautiful from the distance, but then, when you get closer, it’s nothing but darkness and monsters.”</p><p>Alucard huffed a laugh.</p><p>“Monsters like me,” he said.</p><p>Hector turned towards him.</p><p>“You’re not a monster, Adrian,” he said, again using his given name. “You’re not more a monster than me. Maybe I am one too.”</p><p>“Maybe.”</p><p>Hector smiled.</p><p>“I think Lenore was a monster for what she did to me. I don’t see you doing things like she did, and even in his insanity, your father never would have done what she did, he would have never pretended to love when he only wanted to torture and rape,” Hector said. “Maybe vampires are able to this cruelty, maybe humans are different…”</p><p>“They are not,” Alucard, Adrian, interrupted him. “After you were captured, there were two humans here with me. Sumi and Taka. They came from far away and they tried to use me, seduced me and used my desire to end this agonizing loneliness against me.”</p><p>“What became of them?” Hector asked.</p><p>“They paid the price;” Adrian replied, eyes on the dawning sun on the horizon.</p><p>“Then they deserved that,” the other gave back, surprising Adrian who now turned to look at him.</p><p>“Why would you say that?”</p><p>Hector smiled, friendly and open, taking away years from his features and making him look like the young man he was.</p><p>“Because you saved me when you could have killed me. You are sick of being alone, Adrian, as am I.”</p><p>Adrian tilted his head to the side in the way he always did when he tried to understand what someone was planning to do, trying to make the connections and understand implications.</p><p>“Maybe,” Hector said. “Maybe it’s time to be alone together.”</p><p>Adrian looked at the hand that had taken his, fingers threading with each other and then loosening again and connecting them only with one finger.</p><p>Two young man, equal yet not the same, with wounds that left deep scars on their tortured souls.</p><p>Vampire and human.</p><p>Prince and forge master.</p><p>Adrian and Hector.</p><p>Maybe not yet friends. </p><p>Maybe not yet something more.</p><p>“You know I’m right.”</p><p>He nodded.</p><p>“I know.”</p>
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